Household claims

Series objectives

The Household Claims series has the following objectives:

· to provide long-run monthly trend series for housing and consumer loans by institutional group; and

· to deliver a comprehensive and robust measure of net monthly household loan growth.

Household claims by institutional group

Table C6 was re-structured from December 2004 to show household loan data from banks and non-bank financial institutions (NBFIs) separately on a consistent basis since June 1998. All registered bank household credit (including that from finance company subsidiaries) is included as well as that from NBFIs with total assets over $100m (refer Table C6 background notes). Securitised loans administered by reporting institutions are included in these tables in the relevant group. Prior to December 2004 the NBFI housing and consumer data series include minor loan amounts from managed fund/life insurance sources, in order to meet coverage objectives.

Technical Notes

Housing and consumer loan categories in the series were a source of relatively frequent reclassification until 1998 and for this reason no monthly distinction can be made in the household claims series before June 1998. While clearly credit card debt and hire purchase loans, for example, are consumer credit, there are other term and overdraft/revolving credit loans that may be allocated in either category depending on an institution's definition of a loan 'for housing'. Quarterly average statistics for housing and consumer loans are available in table C6(a) from 1990.

For statistical returns, the Reserve Bank requests reporting institutions to classify loans secured by way of residential security according to the purpose of the loan where it is able to do so. Accordingly, the values of residential mortgage loans recorded by General Disclosure Statements (based on security), for example, may exceed those in statistical returns requesting housing purpose, as such loans may be for business or consumer purposes. Most respondents cannot readily distinguish loan purpose from residential security values however and housing loan values by and large reflect loan values secured by residential mortgage.

The household claims series in particular does not include the following:

· loans from lenders with total assets of less than $100m (less than $1b at December 2008);

· solicitors' nominee residential mortgages (estimated at less than $100m at December 2008);

· housing loans directly held by various group investment, pension and other like funds and made by Housing New Zealand Corporation (in total less than $1.5b at December 2008);

· student loans.

Data for these categories are recorded annually and published in aggregate in the “Household financial assets and liabilities” table, available on the website (see Statistics/money, credit and financial data). At December 2008, an estimated 99 per cent of all housing and more than 90 per cent of all consumer loan values are included in table C6.